


Black and Blue

by adastra615



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Blood, Character Study, Dark Stuff, Drabbles, Masochism, Not Kayfabe Compliant, Other, gratuitous angst, indulge me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-21 11:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9546710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adastra615/pseuds/adastra615
Summary: Dark drabbles about Dean Ambrose/Jon Moxley. I want to explore Dean's past a little and I'm endlessly fascinated by his Jon Moxley persona.





	1. you're not who they say you are

Sometimes when it hurts really bad, when he feels something crack or the wind gets knocked out of him, or blood runs in his eyes, he can hear them chanting Mox.

His face is sticking to the mat, the skin above his eyebrow cut open by a punch thrown the wrong way. He’s half in and out of consciousness and that match could have stretched away for all time for all he knew; the reverberation of someone stepping closer to him the only thing to momentarily bring him back into the present. He can't even remember where he is; what town, what state.  Blood pounding in his ears, his stomach roiling with the effort to crawl back to his feet, he knows what a concussion feels like and it’s an easy familiar sensation. He'll be throwing up tonight, his ears ringing, but for now he can stand, even as the ring tilts oddly around him.

And that's the feeling, that sick gut, bloodletting taste of iron in his mouth that he lives for - used to live for her thinks - because now he's not quite as broken and hurting and wanting to punish himself as much as before, but still the pain makes the blood sing in his veins; makes him more than the fucked up kid from Cincinnati. In that moment he's nothing but ferocity, giving and taking, and he thinks he likes it so much because it's what he deserves. For once the universe aligns, and he's in his element, bleeding and hurting and he tastes it in his mouth and he wants more. 

As his ears ring it's not Dean, Dean, they’re shouting but the only name he's ever really been, and it's not even his true name, no he threw that away long ago. But it's the closest they'll get. No, the kid he was before Mox doesn't even seem real anymore. Mox is what he deserves, who he really is, and he likes the way it makes him feel more then the pain. It happens when he's feeling particularly masochistic, when he wants to hurt himself, when he can't see himself as Dean anymore that he gives into those old feelings and maybe he slips up on purpose, moves just the wrong way to make it hurt.


	2. but then again, maybe you're nothing

He's so drunk he can barely stand.  The sun beats down against his shoulders and there’s too much noise.  He’s leaning against the makeshift ring assembled quickly in some empty lot a mile off the highway. Absent, a place meant for nothing, the soil too dry and rocky to be worthwhile – abandoned – passed over – meant for nothing but this. He rests his head against one of the poles, kicks absently at the dirt.  His vision tracks weirdly and he can't quite stand right.  It’s either the pills or the right hook he took to the side of his head on some day in some week some time ago. Even though he knows it had to be last night, it feels like ages ago.  They're chanting his name. It echoes wrongly, like he’s being constricted by it; he wants to crawl out of his skin, but once he pushes himself into the ring it will all go silent. He'll regain some part of himself that's missing out here standing in the dirt. He can taste the dust against his tongue.  

It’s only in there that he feels all right.  

He's numb enough from the booze and the pills he took before the match that he won't feel much, not unless it really hurts. He wants the blood and pain and punishment to cut through it all, to feel it like it’s the only thing in the world and nothing else exists outside it - to narrow his vision to the tiniest aperture and block out all the bullshit that's always running through his head; all the voices that will never stop talking that make him pull on his hair, slam his head against the wall, swallow his medicine cabinet just. to. make. it. fucking. stop.

It's never quite enough though. There's something resilient in him and he wonders how after every time he steps away from the ring bloodied and beaten and still somehow alive, what the purpose of it is. It's a slow death, and he moves towards it, circling it ever closer.  He never thought he would live very long.

Somehow he's in the ring; he can’t remember stepping inside, but maybe he's always been there he thinks with a drunken woozy smile that pisses his opponent off enough to make him send a fist into his face. He bites his tongue as his head snaps back and the blood in his mouth tastes right, and that haze lifts from his mind. Everything narrows to that one single point.  He steps forward and if they’re shouting Mox behind him he doesn’t know, because for once everything is silent.


	3. Interlude

He feels uneasy in the motel lobby; can't get his bearings. He wants to pace, wants to smoke, just something, anything to take his mind out of this antsy inescapable feeling of what? being trapped? He doesn’t have words for it.  Just like a fire lit under his feet, he can’t stay in one place for long. He has to pace.  He pulls at his hair, scratches the skin on his arms.

 He told Roman he was stepping out for a minute.  He’d lost his fight earlier that night, stumbled and fell and couldn’t get his legs back under him after AJ had punched him.  His eye hurts like hell, and it's purple and green and it's starting to swell shut.  He wishes he could just feel tired, just so exhausted he could climb into bed next to Ro and just close his eyes, feel that warmth and weight against his back , feel normal, at peace for goddamn once, but he's too hyped up, can't seem to pull himself back together.

It's not always like this, sometimes its okay, but other times those demons come to snap at his heels, won't let him forget what he really is, where he really came from, and where he belongs.

He's bloodying his knuckles against the outside of the motel , the rough stucco breaking his skin, but then he's not, can’t, and warmth envelopes his hand. Whatever he'd been about to shout dies in his throat. Roman's holding his hand; the damage he’d done to his knuckles bad enough that even the smallest of pressure makes them ache.

"Don't,” Roman says and there's more to that word then he can really fathom, just feels it all in that moment, and it washes over him, pushes away some of that feeling that makes him want to destroy himself. 

 "Come here,” and then Roman's arms are around him. Roman smells like cologne and sweat, and god his eye hurts and his hand.  It's a feeling that ebbs and flows.  And Roman can bring him back down from that high where he can’t feel anything, where it seems like he’s nothing, and the only thing that can ground him is pain and hurt, and yet with Roman there’s something else.  It’s not that physical pain he’s used his whole life, but something entirely different, almost opposite but just as strong.

 "Come on, there'll be other fights. Not use wasting all that energy against the wall."

Dean nods, for once at a loss for words.

 "How'd you know where to find me?"

 "You had that dangerous, I'm- going-to-go-punch-walls-god-damn-it look in your eye."

 "That obvious?"

 "Just been around you so much, I can't help but notice it. Tell me when you feel like that.  Save those kind of punches for AJ or Chris, not some undeserving wall."

He's trying to be light about it and Dean appreciates it, because he doesn't really feel like hashing it out, can't really explain it to himself, so no way in hell could he explain it to Roman in any sort of comprehensible way. Nah, no fucking way was that even a possibility.

Roman steers him back into the lobby and they stop at the ice machine.

 "We're going to need even more than normal just for your eye. Damn, can you even see?"

 "Can still see your ugly mug, Ro,” he says but it's hard to put any emotion into it.  And Roman must notice because he stops asking questions and just leads him back to the room.

"Sit,” he says and points to the bed. Dean obliges, but more than anything he wants out of here can’t stand to be cornered like this, even if it is with Roman,  old feelings die hard.  Roman goes to the bathroom, bags the ice and wraps it in a towel.

 "When you feel like that, tell me," he says again, and Dean stares at the floor, bobbing his knee up and down.

 "I mean it. We'll go and spar, anything. Just don't bottle that shit up. Can you even bend your knuckles?"

 Dean raises his hand up defiantly and rolling his eyes bends his fingers a few times. They hurt like hell and they're still oozing blood, but they're not broken, just bruised. He knows what broken feels like.

 “s'not so bad."

"Not so bad my ass. What would you have done if they were broken? You think you can keep touring and fighting beaten into a pulp? Think they’ll keep you on the roster in that state?

 "Fuck, Roman. I don't need this shit right now.”  And then he feels it again, that spark and he's on his feet, just wants out of this goddamn room, feels so fucking trapped, but then roman's blocking the door, and he tries to shove him aside, drives his shoulder up, but Roman catches him pushes him against the wall. His head snaps back catches the wall and bounces forward with enough force for him to see stars, bright bursts of light that explode in his vision and leave trails, and he tastes blood in his mouth.

He's laughing, he can’t stop.  It doesn’t even sound like him, like it’s coming from a different person entirely.  There’s a pressure in his chest, and his eyes sting, and fuck, he doesn’t want to cry.  He can't take this; he can't take any of it, and especially not Roman trying to care for him, because fuck no one does, and they shouldn’t, he's a piece of shit and he deserves nothing but pain, and then Roman's there cradling the back of his head, cursing and apologizing and he just wants him to fucking stop because goddamn it, it's not his fault. It just happens. Things like that just happen. But those fingers keep running over that spot on the back of his head, and Roman's whispering something soothing against his side, and he pushes himself closer, just to feel that closeness, feel that heat once again, and let it envelope him. Roman just holds him. He closes his eyes and it all dies down a little to something manageable.  And he thinks , maybe, yeah, just for a moment, this is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm open to requests, if there's any sort of hurt/comfort or variation on that trope that you would like to see. I mostly ship Dean/Roman, but can write Dean/Seth too or anything to do with Jon Moxley.


End file.
